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Finding joy in this ordinary, imperfect life

Category Archives: pets

This handsome 2 year old fella is Coconut or One-Eyed Jack or Cokie or Coconutty. He belongs to Mary Claire and Tyler. They have their house up for sale and asked if we would take care of sweet orange kitty cat until they get their house sold.

Of course we would! What fun!Now this is Lilly. She is our 12 year old beautiful girl.

Any way, she is queen of the house. If you have this completely understood then things go just fine. First thing in the morning, her bowl must be filled. No really… don’t make coffee, don’t feed Sam, don’t even think about going to get the newspaper…immediately! Or else she will carry on and on until you do. Ask Superman.

One weekend I was away and Superman was in charge. Lilly started in on him about her empty bowl. Well, Superman is NOT going to take orders from a cat, no way. So he proceeded to make coffee, put a bagel in the toaster and mill around a bit. Meanwhile Lilly is doing her best to let him know that this was not acceptable. Finally he had enough. He put some kibble in her bowl, then went to get the newspaper at the end of the driveway. (I’m sure he was calling my sweet girl some awful names as he shut the door.) He came back to…(hee hee…I’m sorry, but this ALWAYS cracks me up) to Lilly having pooped in her bowl!!! She has never missed her litter box. I mean NEVER! And here she aimed to show him who was boss. I got a call within a minute from him saying “YOU WON’T BELIEVE WHAT YOUR CAT DID!!!”

To this day, I get the biggest laugh remembering this story.So, now back to Coconut. He is pretty much opposite of Lilly. Where she will spend the majority of her day on Thomas’ bed sleeping, Coconut is exploring and getting into mischief.

Now maybe this wouldn’t be so bad for any other cat, but his mommy and daddy were very adamant about Cokie getting a quarter cup of food in the morning and a quarter of food in the evening. Superman and I want to show Mary Claire and Tyler that we can be trusted with their precious babies, both the 4 legged kind and 2 legged, whenever that time may come. (Now I’m not pushing the grandkid idea at all. NO way! Not me.) We want to follow the way they choose to raise their youngin’s. You say 1/4 cup, then by golly, he will get a 1/4 cup.Let’s just say that with this 1/4 cup situation this kitty gets very hungry at dinner time. One evening I was watching a movie in the basement. He came down meowing to let me know it was time to be fed. I told him he would have to wait until the movie finished. Unlike Lilly, he waited patiently. He climbed in my lap and we snuggled a bit.And he busied himself by exploring under the couch. (yes, that’s dust and an old kleenex).He likes to come down to my craft room and play around.

When the men came to install my cooktop, they asked me if I had a roof cat.

“Huh? A roof cat?”

“Yes, m’am. We hear a cat meowing up high, like on the roof… You know my cousin had a cat that would climb up top of his roof.”

“Hang on, let me see.”

I went upstairs to Thomas’ attic space and sure enough when I opened the door, out came an orange kitty.

After his belly is full of kibble and he’s had a good nap, his greatest game is to annoy Lilly. Now Queen L is not really keen on this idea. He will chase her up and down the stairs. Here he is practicing his hunting skills. Needless to say, there is a whole lot of hissing and fussing going on. Many times, one of us will have to put him in time out, which is in Mary Claire’s bedroom with the door shut. Poor old Lilly.Not only have we come home to an orange cat on the kitchen table, but he has the nerve to walk all over our counters too! I asked Mary Claire about this behavior and she says he most definitely is not allowed to do that. I told her what I say and do, and she said I needed to put in a higher octave in order to mimic her disciplinary actions. And say something like “KA-KA-KA!!!” and clap real loud…. Okie dokie, next time.

Here is Lilly trying to get away from the little pesky boy by sitting on top of book case in the den. But even there you see him messing with her through the bars. In the last picture, she is looking at me like “Do you see him? Do you see him bothering me?” As Coconut sits back cleaning his paws because he just got Lilly cooties.What I find funny is that everyone was so afraid that Sam was going to be the problem. People had the NERVE to call her the Black Beast. What!?!Sam loves kitties. She is quite misunderstood.All she wants is a good sniff!

Every day has been an adventure with him. He knocked some glass vase off the counter, shattering it to pieces; he’s hidden himself so well that it took me a couple of times around the house to find him. He was under Adam’s bed behind a box and some stinky socks. Coconutty is such a boy.

I was playing with him the other day on the bed with one of those fabric-on-a-stick kitty toys. He wrestled that thing into knots. Then all of a sudden he hopped off the bed. I looked for him and found him, completely inside the toilet! I didn’t realize that in the few weeks he has been with us, he’s been drinking out of there. He was sitting in an empty toilet bowl. Forget that he has a bowl of water by his food or a bowl of water by Sam’s bowl or EVEN the bowl beside Lilly’s food! He likes toilet water. Lilly would never lower herself to such fraternity/pub style drinking. Bless it. I flushed for him. He now has a fresh clean bowl to quench his thirst.Finally, today I woke up and went upstairs to feed this boy his 1/4 cup of food, but he wasn’t around, which is surprising. As soon as he hears a bag rustling, he comes running. I shrugged and went downstairs to find him. I looked in every room, calling his name. I went outside and asked Superman if he had seen Coconut this morning, but he hadn’t. We came back inside to look again. All of a sudden Superman sees Lilly sitting at the kitchen window that reaches to the floor. She is cocking her head back and forth. You could almost read her mind: “Why are you out there?” Sure enough Superman looks and there is that rascal doing an army crawl with his ears laid back. Superman opened the door and in flew Coconut! The question is “How did he get out there?” He was inside when I went to bed. Superman saw him last night. Thomas was the last to come in and he for whatever reason kept going in and out the door when he got home. We think he was outside all night long. oops! He’s fine now. He’s been sleeping under this bed all day long.